Monday, December 8, 2008

On the final days of English classes at Benson, I asked students to fill out a survey about my teaching, and I handed out goodbye letters I wrote to each student. Additionally, I asked each student to write a letter back to me. The following excerpts came from those letters:

"...thank you for being my teacher. The innovative way you used slide shows to explain a subject was very helpful to my learning experience."

"... you inspired me to do better. I took all of what you said to heart because it is important to stay focused, and you have helped me. I am going to keep coming to class and doing my owkr to be prepared for college."

"You are a great teacher, and I'm sure all of your future students will love you and your teaching. You were really nice and encouraging."

"You have been a role model, a young successful woman, making differences and changing much of the 'young adults' at Benson."

"Your letter was so touching. Thank you for having faith in me being successful."

"Every year I've been in the back of the room in class. I feel invisible to the teacher. None of my other teachers made me feel as smart as I actually am. Thank you so much for acknowledging me."

"It was so cool to have you as a teacher. You made this class fun."

"You made it so much easier for me in this English class. I'm going to miss you... I hope that your students appreciate the great teacher that you are."

"I want to thank you for all the things that you have done for me. Also all the confidence that you gave me about my work."

"Thank you for being supportive... You have been cool to me, and when you help me I could really get what you were saying, and that does not happen a lot."

·I will promote an atmosphere of respect and tolerance. I believe when teachers show respect for their students, it creates an atmosphere of respect that transitions to how students treat each other and themselves.

·I aim to not just teach, but to support, to guide, to promote learning, and to develop personal relationships with my students. Developing such relationships is one of the most important reasons for why I am an educator.

·While I aim to be a strict teacher, I also aim to be a friendly teacher. I want my students to know I like them and that my intent is for them to succeed.

·When students identify that I have respect for them, the classroom is much more manageable. When they understand they have a supportive relationship with me they will learn to respect me and the rules we create together in the classroom.

·I believe students should be a part of the rule-making process. When students are a part of this process, they hold themselves accountable by these rules.

·I believe students learn best from each other and from themselves. I don’t want to tell students what is right and what is wrong, but help them to understand how to make their writing and reading skills better in a way that encourages them to learn. Students become aware of the best way to do things for themselves in this way. Furthermore, I stress that group work is important because students not only learn about the subject we study from each other, but they learn about respect, cooperation, management, and teamwork.

·My classroom environment will be one of motivation and encouragement. I plan to encourage my students by rewarding their positive behavior in a number of ways, including prizes, special assignments, extra credit assignments, winks, nods, smiles, and encouraging words. I will also punish negative behavior, but only after discussing it with the student.

·Students will have the opportunity to turn in late work. Points will be taken off, but I would rather have my students do the work and learn from it, then not do it and have their grade suffer.

·I will regularly survey my students and inquire about what they like about class, what they don’t like, and any other suggestions or issues they may have.

·I believe it is extremely important to understand what a student’s life is like outside the classroom. When we understand their real-life experiences, we understand what they bring to the classroom better. In order to better understand this, I intend to create and continue an open dialogue with parents throughout the school year. One of the ways I’ll establish this open line of communication from the first day of school is a much updated classroom blog.

·Students in my classroom will be held responsible for their own behavior. When students misbehave or act inappropriately they will be called on it. There is no room for disrespect in my classroom.

·My hope is for students to realize that while in my classroom there is no need to act inappropriately to receive attention. My students will always have my full attention when they act in positive ways and contribute productively to the overall learning environment.

The following document is part of my thesis, or Teacher Work Sample, which analyzes the learning results of the month-long Romeo and Juliet unit I created for freshman English students. It includes a detailed analysis of student learning, graphical representations of student learning, and examples of student work.

"My student teaching experience has been challenging, encouraging, frustrating, motivating, educating, inspiring, and a lot of fun! I truly lucked out in finding such a wonderful cooperating teaching to work with. Rob is laid-back, cheerful, kind-hearted, and a great educator. He is also one of the busiest people I know. He has taken being involved in the education community to a new level, with memberships and positions held in the Oregon Education Association, the Portland Association of Teachers, the National Education Association, and just about any journalism educators group you could think of. He has been a great help to me as I navigate my way through the first steps of my new career." "I also feel lucky to be working with the students I have in class this year. There are times when the classes can be very disruptive and wild, but take each student out of the context of a wild classroom, and I like them all so much. I am so excited any time an unruly student is caught paying attention in class. I am also delighted when students come by after school and at lunch just to say “hi”. I thought before coming into this experience that the most important thing to me would be the personal relationships I develop with students, and that inclination has turned out to be very true. In fact, I believe one of my strengths as a teacher will be my natural ability to get along with my students. We have a lot of fun together, and I hope that continues from year to year. Another strength is that I am a very motivated, self-directed, organized teacher. I could easily see how this career could overwhelm me if I wasn’t all of those things. My weaknesses so far seem to center on slowing things down for my students. Because of my tendency to keep everything so tightly organized, I tend to rush through lessons, (especially on Fridays when we have shortened periods), just to ensure I get everything done I am “supposed” to get done. However, it is important I do not lose students in the process of being so efficient. The same goes for how I direct questions at students. I need to work on slowing down my questioning so all students have proper time to respond. Furthermore, classroom management can be a challenge, and there is and will always be room for improvement to that end. The longer I teach the more tricks I will learn and be able to utilize in class for more effective classroom management. My strength of getting along so well with my students is something that will enable me to progress further along in classroom management. It is easier to manage students who like a teacher than students who do not!"

Below is an example of another PowerPoint I created for freshman English. The first slide is what appears on the projector when students enter the classroom. It gives them an idea of what we're starting off with for the day, a technique I often used in class. This interactive PowerPoint also includes a warm up activity, lecture, and class activity. (The PowerPoint layout doesn't translate perfectly, so some of the pictures on this form are moved up in position).

I believe it's extremely important to give students every opportunity for success; therefore, before each unit test I created as a student teacher, I provided students with a detailed study guide so they could be best prepared as test-takers. Below are the two study guides I created for students, one for our short story unit, (the first of the year), and another for our Romeo and Juliet unit.

On the left hand side of this page there is a blog list that includes the Tech Pep blog, the Freshman English blog, and a blog about my reflections during my student teaching. The Tech Pep is the name of the student-run newspaper at Benson, and the blog serves as a communication tool for students and teachers. The Freshman English blog is also a great resource for students and parents. My cooperating teacher and I updated the blog regularly so students and parents would know what we did in class each day. You can see my entire Romeo and Juliet unit laid out on the blog! Additionally, I created the Student Teacher Reflections blog as a way to journal some of my experiences as I worked through my student teaching. Each blog offers a lot of additional insight into my life as a teacher and the life of students at Benson.

During our Romeo and Juliet unit, I asked students to fill out a worksheet based on online research they conducted about a current Shakespeare festival from anywhere around the world. Once students had their worksheets filled out, they then translated that information to a PowerPoint presentation. This is one example of a freshman English student's presentation.Student Sample: Shakespeare Festival PowerPoint

The following is a PowerPoint presentation I created for the first day of my month-long Romeo and Julietunit. The layout of the presentation is a bit different, as some formatting doesn't translate from PowerPoint to this uploaded version.

Before viewing this presentation as a lecture in class, I asked students to write a quick warm-up response regarding their thoughts on the evolution of language. Students were asked, "We know language is different now than it was in Shakespeare's days. Why do you think language evolves?" After a class discussion on student responses, students filled out a KWL chart about Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet. Next, we went through the above PowerPoint presentation together, before students began working on their homework assignment: creating 10 new words, identifying the part of speech for each word, and writing a definition for each word. During the following class period, students were asked to share their words aloud.

This is the second issue of the school newspaper for the 2008-2009 school year. One article of note can be found on page 3: "Tech Pep Tours KGW Studios". As a former producer at KGW, I organized a visit from a Channel 8 reporter to come and speak to students in the classroom, as well as a student tour of the television studios downtown. For this issue, I worked with students on story ideas, editing, and layout.

As life seems to move at a faster pace, I realize what is most important: travel, inspiring and helping others, creating art, spending time with my loved ones, eating good food, and learning to appreciate each moment for all the wonderful things it can hold.